For 10 years, Oberon — the American Repertory Theater’s second performance space in Cambridge — was known to locals and visitors alike for “The Donkey Show,” a disco rendition of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The show closed in 2019, and in 2021, Oberon shuttered, too.

Now, a new venue called Arrow Street Arts is taking over the existing space, and it’s kicking off its grand opening in a big way with Arrowfest, a 11-day arts festival showcasing local actors, musicians, dancers, circus performers, puppeteers and more.

Georgia Lyman, executive producer of the theater company, Liars and Believers, and the lead curator of Arrowfest, said putting together the festival itself was a challenging — but joyful — experience.

“We had about 170 applicants, and we had the difficult and amazingly fun task of selecting about 40 of them that have actually made up the lineup of the festival,” Lyman said. “We really wanted to make sure that we were showcasing the best as well as the most diverse representation that we could get.”

The festival kicks off with an immersive experience by Liars and Believers called “Don’t Open This,” and goes on to feature local artists of all disciplines performing at the new Arrow Street Arts center, showcasing what the space can be and how it can be transformed and used by a variety of artists.

One group premiering a new work is Boston History Company, known locally as a boutique tour company around Boston and Cambridge. Two of its members, including founding member Daniel Berger-Jones, will be doing a humorous and poignant performance focused on local history.

“It’s really easy to mistake history as a set of things that happen to some comic-book characters who were fictional a long time ago,” Berger-Jones said. “It’s like, no, this stuff happened to people. It could have happened to you too, if you were in the right position.”

Rob Crean, also of Boston History Company, said this performance is also a way to reach a new audience: Boston and Cambridge locals.

“We work in tourism, and people who live in the city where they live often don’t want to go do tourist things,” Crean said. “This is an opportunity for us to tell some of the more obscure stories that we might tell on a tour to an audience of locals, to let them know that these tours are fun and not not boring, but also not cheesy and goofy, which I think is what a lot of people think tourism is like.”

Arrowfest runs from Sept. 5 to 15. More information can be found at arrowstarts.org.

Guests:

  • Georgia Lyman, executive producer of the theater company, Liars and Believers, and the lead curator of Arrowfest.
  • Rob Crean and Daniel Berger-Jones, performers with Boston History Company who will be premiering a new work at Arrowfest.